Decoding the Bond Villain Wardrobe

With the premiere of 'Spectre,' the Nehru jacket makes a return to the 007 universe.

By
Thomas Vinciguerra

Nov 5, 2015

Getty ImagesPopperfoto

When Spectre, the 24th James Bond film, opens on November 6, it will erupt with the usual 007 cocktail of big explosions, louche locales and squeezable babes.

The movie will also sport an iconic style element that has long signaled the dark forces over which our hero with the license to kill always triumphs.

It's a Nehru jacket.

Once again, a major Bond villain will sport this slightly subversive piece of tailoring. In an official trailer, Hans Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) can be seen in an elegant black Nehru, buttoned ominously only at the neck.

For decades, both the Nehru and its cousin, the Mao tunic, have distinguished Bond bad guys. Obviously, anyone who would choose such unconventional garb is suspect. The outfits subliminally wink that rogue terrorist operators and nonaligned nations are the real threat to our way of life.

"It's the default, go-to sartorial choice for madmen and megalomaniacs," says Bruce Feirstein, who wrote or co-wrote the 007 entries GoldenEye (1995) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).

Christoph Waltz as Franz Oberhauser.

Screenshot: YouTube

Waltz's Nehru is no accident, suggests John Cork, co-author of James Bond: The Legacy (Harry N. Abrams, 2002). Eon, he says, has lately been recalling the heyday of Sean Connery: "All of the films they've done since Pierce Brosnan are saying, 'Remember those Bond films from when you were a kid? Well, we're going to reference them.'"

The pattern was set in 1962 with the first big-screen Bond, Dr. No. In Ian Fleming's original novel, the half-Chinese, half-German nemesis of the title wore a gunmetal kimono so oversized that his movements barely dented it. "The bizarre, gliding figure looked like a giant venomous worm wrapped in grey tin-foil," Fleming wrote.

Something less preposterous was required for the big screen. So when the Canadian-born actor Joseph Wiseman was cast as Dr. No, he was made up as a nondescript Eurasian in a whitish Nehru jacket and accompanying pants and shoes. The smart ensemble imparted just the right degree of quiet, off-kilter malevolence. True to the SPECTRE philosophy, the rig reflected No's independent, Third World geopolitical loyalties.

"East, West, just points of the compass, each as stupid as the other," Wiseman intoned.

Donald Pleasence as Blofeld.

Everett

The Mao motif entered the Bond universe two years later on Mr. Ling (Burt Kwouk), the Red Chinese atom-bomb apparatchik in Goldfinger. But it was in You Only Live Twice (1967) that it figured most memorably—on SPECTRE's chief mischief-maker, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence). Though never explicitly stated, it was clear that Peking (as it was then known) was sponsoring SPECTRE's seizure of U.S. and Soviet space capsules to sow mutual suspicion and nuclear war.

When Telly Savalas became Blofeld in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), he transitioned to a Bavarian riff on a Nehru—a sort of miesbacher jacket sans lapels.

"It's almost a throwback to what you'd expect to see him wearing in the Eagle's Nest," says Bruce Scivally, Mr. Cork's co-author.

Mao-type get-ups returned on Charles Gray's Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Yaphet Kotto's Dr. Kananga in Live And Let Die (1973), Michael Lonsdale's Hugo Drax in Moonraker (1979), and John Hollis's Blofeld-esque character in For Your Eyes Only (1981). Along the way, Curt Jurgens deployed a twist on the formula as Karl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), in drapey smocks set off by flowing neckwear.

Louis Jourdan as Kamal Khan.

Everett

The last classic gasps of Bond enemy togs were probably the elegant Nehrus of Louis Jourdan's Kamal Khan in Octopussy (1983) and the black Mao, with matching turtleneck, of Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). The former made sense, given that Khan was an exiled Afghan prince. But for Pryce as a '90s media mogul, the look was outdated.

"After détente and Nixon went to China," says Scivally, "it was more like stock villain-wear."

Still, you can't keep sinister Bond couture down. In Die Another Day (2002), a cadre of outlaw North Korean generals donned Nehrus. Around that time, too, their real-world Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, was making his own unorthodox fashion statement with his short-sleeved, Maoish unitards. His son and successor Kim Jong-un is now recalling Cold War paranoia with his very own Mao ensemble.

"Bond has entered the fabric of contemporary life, real life, whether we want him there or not," Bruce Handy wrote in Spy magazine more than 25 years ago. The clothing of his adversaries continues to do the same.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.